How (Not) to Quarantine & Fight Coronavirus in Egypt

In our monthly How (Not) To column, Egyptian writer Timmy Mowafi reflects on, well, how not to do things. As the Coronavirus pandemic sweeps the globe at alarming speed and forces many into quarantine, he takes this time to reflect on the virus and its consequences...

This is just mass media hysteria. An average flu blown out of proportion. It will blow over shortly and the world will simply remember Corona as a light beer which tastes great with a twist of lemon that doesn’t kill old people.

DAY MINUS ONE

Hysteria for sure. Just a common cold. I mean look at these videos flooding social media showing 500 Cairenes partying it up at a nightclub, grinding on each other's bacteria faster than the BPM. Zamalek’s crowded pubs continue on in an apathetic bubble, the world’s headlines no more than a titbit of small talk until the next sangria arrives at the table.

It will blow over shortly and the world will simply remember Corona as a light beer which tastes great with a twist of lemon that doesn’t kill old people.

I go out for dinner and run into an old acquaintance, habitually going in for the double cheek kiss. I’m stopped in my tracks by a look which says don’t you dare touch me. I scan my memory to see if I may have pissed him off in the past but by the time I remember supposed health protocols I’m already too far in my movement forward, I make eye contact and my hands are just wrapped around his waist in some strange loving embrace. This lasts for quite a few horrible seconds. He quickly escapes the awkward slow-dance I initiated, pulling out a hand sanitizer before disappearing. Jeez, paranoid much?

The coronavirus from the TV, which looks like a friendly mix between Hellraiser’s Pinhead and Shrek, says people over 60 with existing conditions are more susceptible to the disease so I call to check up on my father. “Bos yabni,” he starts, meaning I know I’m about to receive a wisdom. “Egyptian civilization has been around for 7000 years. ‘Egypt’ as a country is named in the Quran. As a people we are protected…”

My two primary sources thus far seem questionable, so much like the rest of the world, I dive headfirst into the interwebz for answers and my mind becomes a clusterfuck of differing opinions, empty affirmations, and pointless conspiracies. Egypt has 126 cases, Egypt has 16,000 cases; the virus is from a bat or a wild cat that pooped on an armadillo at a wet market in Wuhan; the virus was leaked to the public as part of some Machiavellian biological warfare between the United States and China to halt their undeniable trajectory to world domination and the vaccine is actually available but pharmaceutical companies are waiting for the most profitable time to release it; the virus was released by a cryogenically frozen Bill Gates from the future to warn the world of an even more deadly disease on the horizon so he can say ‘I told you so’ again. The virus has become the most viral thing since we started frivolously using the term viral.

The virus is a lot of things - the one thing it seems the virus is not is going away any time soon.

DAY 6

Americans are hoarding toilet paper which means, yes, obviously they’ve never heard of a shatafa but also like what the fuck man. Why do you need so much toilet paper? Why is that the problem? Why is the poop the problem here? The virus goes in your eyes, nose, and mouth - not in your bum.

...the actions of both the wealthy and the poor, the healthy and pious, all have equal weight on your own fate. We are all connected. We are the earth’s virus and this is ours.

Regardless, a vague sense of urgency hits me - as if I too, should rush to the supermarket to buy...something, anything, to make me feel safe. At Alfa Market, between the macarona and the condiments (not sure why that’s my supermarket safe zone) I look up. A sort of cinematic fog wafts from underneath the aisles and blankets the corridors of products ahead, giving me a view of an elderly woman who Tokyo Drifts her trolley to avoid an incoming gentleman with a facemask going for the fusilli. Two people lean in for the same bottle of Heinz tomato paste then reflex back. Everyone is afraid of everyone; it’s the scene before the scene that they don’t show you in every apocalypse film.

Americans are hoarding toilet paper which means, yes, obviously they’ve never heard of a shatafa but why do you need so much toilet paper? And why is the poop the problem here?

On a positive note, every banal household action is now a thrilling life or death murder mystery. The orange juice carton I’m pouring from right now…where was it last? The delivery man! Did I fuck touch him!? Was he wearing gloves? Who stocked this carton on the shelves? Was it Ahmed, on aisle 6, with the cough? I pull out the sanitizer and scrub my hands to a rubbery pulp, wipe down the juice carton with Dettol, wipe down all the real oranges in the fridge for their familiar association. I throw away the carton and bathe naked and cry in a tub full of ٥٥٥ perfume for the remainder of the evening.

And the only weapon we have against the enemy is to solemnly sing happy birthday to ourselves in the mirror whilst washing our hands with soap.

DAY 15-ISH [WHAT WAS LIFE BEFORE CORONA?]

I wake up breathless, having dreamt I woke up breathless, having been told yesterday that people who contract the disease wake up breathless. Turns out it’s not hysteria; death tolls are rising, sopranos are bellowing out of Italian balconies, the fat lady is literally singing and everything has the touch of a Fellini-esque dream sequence. I’m in full ‘my anxieties have anxieties mode’ with boxes of Dettol and rubber gloves in every room in the house and one step away from mandatory hazmat suit entry.

The realization hits home: the whole world is being tested on a curve and we are only as strong as the weakest person on the team - a mind boggling psychological dissonance to hurdle. It is a complete shift in thinking to know as a fact that the actions of both the wealthy and the poor, the healthy and pious, all have equal weight on your own fate. We are all connected. We are the earth’s virus and this is ours.

I throw away the carton and bathe naked and cry in a tub full of 555 perfume for the remainder of the evening.

Every day the nation waits with baited breath for an announcement but it’s always a bit of a cock tease. “Discussions.” There are discussions about health regulations, there are discussions about lock down, there are discussions about curfews - but no definitive action. Where was all this transparency during two revolutions and a financial collapse? It’s like watching Sex and the City as a 12-year-old and constantly watching the protagonists discuss sex on various high tables and not understanding anything they’re talking about but knowing deep down there might be a possibility to watch some sex but it never happens.

I’m in full ‘my anxieties have anxieties mode’ with boxes of Dettol and rubber gloves in every room in the house and one step away from mandatory hazmat suit entry.

Many Egyptians are still packed in metros and cafes and roaming the streets but for the most part, the world’s citizens are staying home. I swear, if you had got every superstar celebrity in Hollywood together to do a charity song about staying inside for just one day for the sake of global warming no one would have given a flying fuck but now we have the most obedient class of 2020.

Billions of boys and girls sent to the naughty corner…except it seems suddenly there’s no adults in the room to tell us when we can go out to play again.

DAY 18

All I want to do is touch my face.

DAY 19

My wife F coughs. I go into panic mode. If I take her to hospital will she be taken away to the quarantine center 8 hours away in Marsa Matrouh? What medicine should I get? How do I know if she has it? Oh my god, I’m going to have to call her family and tell everyone she’s contracted it? This is going to be more shameful than the time I had to tell her aunts I don’t have a membership in Gezirah Club.

My wife F coughs. I go into panic mode. Oh my god, I’m going to have to call her family and tell everyone she’s contracted coronavirus? This is going to be more shameful than the time I had to tell her aunts I don’t have a membership in Gezirah Club.

F takes another puff of her cigarette and tells me to calm the fuck down.

Authorities have finally finished their chat. It’s curfew. Which we are, of course, used to. I imagine the Twitterati of the 2011 revolution feel a cold shiver of excitement run up their spines only to realize social distancing means this is one Egyptian problem that can’t be fought with revolution, but seclusion. 2eed wahda! (Sanitized, with a safe 1.5m distance). United we fall, divided we stand.

A post shared by Elfasla (@elfaslaonline) on Mar 28, 2020 at 11:57am PDT

This virooos (the official pronunciation in these parts) has little to no political aptitude and only one goal in life which is to reproduce as much as physically possible, meaning we actually have a lot in common. However, if the virus was organised and sentient, then their government has shown incredible tactical nous to dominate Earth as if in a game of Risk, and I’m pretty sure when the Coronian Head Council hears about our curfew there will be zero hesitancy in terms of their own working hours.

DAY 20-ISH (PRESENT)

Finished Netflix, finished Instagram, finished all possible conversations with my wife, finished the wine, finished the board games, finished the memes, finished dreams, finished all BuzzFeed quizzes - and to be fair I already know what kind of vegetable I am at this point.

As you can imagine the answer to the age old dinner question “how was your day honey” is hardly riveting conversation because you know the answer, you know the answer so much more precisely than you would have ever wished to know. You know it involves a 3:21 PM work related breakdown over lack of internet and how hard you tap the keyboard when you’re typing; a 4:47 PM poop; and a 6:18 PM snack which meant your remaining Gouda cheese was devoured - again - and frankly you do not want to get into that conversation so you attempt to watch a movie instead which usually lasts about ten minutes before giving up on the buffering. We’ve watched the first ten minutes of Contagion five times which, if you’ve seen the film recently, you’ll know is kind of like injecting your eyeballs with pure paranoia, at a festival for paranoia.

We’ve watched the first ten minutes of Contagion five times which, if you’ve seen the film recently, you’ll know is kind of like injecting your eyeballs with pure paranoia, at a festival for paranoia.

The Internet is horrifically slow at the moment, I assume because everyone is uploading a video of them doing, like, a quirky quarantine thing like drinking wine at 2 PM, making clay figurines of their favourite Casa de Papel characters, filming their TikTok dance routines, doing squats with the toaster, doing theater with their pets who don’t care, live streaming themselves DJing for the first time, or masturbating for the 5th time (that day) and then watching the rest of the porn after climaxing out of boredom as to not miss important plot points. Or doing all of the above at the same time.

The Internet is horrifically slow at the moment, I assume because everyone is uploading a video of them doing, like, a quirky quarantine thing like drinking wine at 2 PM, filming their TikTok dance routines, doing squats with the toaster...

It means 90% of my day is taken up mostly by trying to get video conferencing software to work for work. Hello can you hear me?Can you hear me, can you see me? I can see you but I can’t smell you. God, I miss the first ten minutes of meeting small talk followed by 40 minutes of drivel to fill the air. The little things.

I long for someone to complain to me about Cairo’s traffic.

Football is cancelled. FOOTBALL. IS. CANCELLED. Which in my mind is more disastrous than any economic recession or world altering pandemic. I would rather contract the Spanish Flu than miss the Spanish League. All of it, the Premier League… Mo Salah’s title!... Serie A... gone. All live football has been wiped off the face of the earth except the Belarus League (true story).

I long for someone to complain to me about Cairo’s traffic.

And this is because, in the philosophical wordsof their nation’s president, Aleksander Lukashenko, “People are working in tractors, no one is talking about the virus. In the villages, the tractor will heal everyone. The fields heal everyone.” It’s all fine and well that people are suddenly waking up to the fact that we need to look up to the scientists and doctors of the world to save the human race but really all we need is tractors.

I do somewhat question the validity of Lukashenko’s comments - after all, this is the same president who publicly decreed that it's "better to be a dictator than gay" (which I’m sure is something he might have said while watching Sex in the City over a Quarantini spritzer).

Carrie Bradshaw to the Coronavirus.

It seems like we’ve taken advantage of so much. We made all the pointless things we didn’t need to buy; we flew to all the places we didn’t need to be; we drove to all the work we didn’t need to do; ate all the things we didn’t need to eat and now mama earth is telling us kefaya.

The hole in the ozone is closing and the clearing in the forest that humans called civilization is suddenly swelling up revealing our temporary state and arrogant ways. Dolphins are swimming in the canals of Venice, deers are prancing in the city centers of Japan, monkeys are rushing the temple’s of Thailand, and Cairo’s street cats are investing in long term property deals in New Giza - it’s really a wonderful time to be alive if you are a nature.

Dolphins are swimming in the canals of Venice, deers are prancing in the city centers of Japan, monkeys are rushing the temple’s of Thailand, and Cairo’s street cats are investing in long term property deals in New Giza.

I will not take my life for granted. I shall not play into boredom. I shall do as the interwebz says and do all the things that I always said I would do: I will meditate religiously, I will work out aggressively, I will read books studiously, I will learn instruments expertly, I will get a kitten and do Tiktok videos of it dancing with its ickle paws and I will use this time in quarantine to be all the things that 9-5 work weeks and FOMO would not let me be.

DAY 312 [FUTURE]

I am not a super intelligent, buffed up, spiritual shaman. I don’t have a cat. I have a scruffy lumberjack beard, reptilian hands, and am considerably poorer and fatter. F and I are now separated since the Scrabble battle of day 242 - ‘Quarantimes’ by the way, is almost certainly a word - although of course this divorce is only theoretical as we are stuck together in the house anyways.

Outside, winter is returning. The Belarus League is still going strong and I’m supporting Thorpedo-Belaz Zhodino who linger in 6th place. I’ve named and memorised all the door handles in the house.

F and I are now separated since the Scrabble battle of day 242 - ‘Quarantimes’ by the way, is almost certainly a word - although of course this divorce is only theoretical as we are stuck together in the house anyways.

Conspiracies and solutions abound. There is a brief respite when it turns out the disease cannot stick to copper so a huge rush for various copper-based surfaces and products lead to the creation of a black market of fake imported copper covers from China, which stabilizes their economy. Unfortunately it seems the virus has evolved and can now stay for weeks or even months on any surface including copper, fake copper, and especially the furry blankets with animal prints that usually come in shades of brown or purple found in 95% of Egyptian homes .

I’ve named all the door handles in the house.

Egypt’s authorities are currently in discussions about potentially discussing pushing back the curfew and going on complete lockdown. In an effort to lift morale from isolation and to revert to the herd immunity plan, the UK brings back the Premier League. Egyptians everywhere dismiss curfew, crowding the streets and cafes of Egypt to watch Liverpool and Mo Salah clinch the title. The game is lost and all 22 players and officials contract the virus - three quarters of Egyptian population also contract the deadly virus.

I finally manage to get on the video conference with the client, although the project has since been disbanded due to obvious budget constraints. We sit there negotiating creative reverts as a form of entertainment - an ode to the good old days of corporate strangleholds.

DAY 426 [A BIT MORE FUTURE]

China is completely free of viruses and has assumed its position as officially the most powerful and only functioning country in the world. A vaccine is discovered. Limited quantities will be released. Government is discussing distribution. The first batch will be going to Mo Salah and the rest will be available through Chinese wholesale website Ali Baba. The internet is too slow to reach checkout. Belarus’ president has come out as gay (totally called it). The biometric detectors installed in each home to detect signs of disease now just shouts ads for new Coca Cola Copper to me whenever my heart beat goes up. I was wondering why it needed speakers.

A vaccine is discovered. Limited quantities will be released. The first batch will be going to Mo Salah and the rest will be available through Chinese wholesale website Ali Baba.

DAY 9,067,345,342 [VERY FUTURE]

What was once just a stupid reproducing cell-less parasite has evolved into super intelligent sentient race (don’t quote me on the science of this). A Coronian farmer in the American midlands heads to the wet market where everyday he sells wild humans and other primates to various affluent buyers. It’s said in their meat lies certain minerals and vitamins that act as aphrodisiacs and can make you super-coronian.

DAY 9,067,345,343 [VERY, VERY FUTURE]

The first case of HMN1 is detected close to the market. Coronian government immediately quarantines the case and informs all surrounding civilians to self isolate for two weeks. No one hears about the fucking virus again.

***

Of course, Salah's Premier League winners medal and my slow internet are the least of anyone's concerns right now. To help Egyptian families in need during the Covid-19 crisis you can donate to the following organizations: Egyptian Food Bank & Resala